"Them an" us, both," replied the man in the bunk, and groaned as a hot pain shot through his injured leg.
Breakfast over, Connie picked up his rifle, fastened on his snowshoes, and stepped on the wind-softened snow. He had taken scarcely a half-dozen steps when he was forced to halt--anch.o.r.ed fast in the soggy snow. In vain he tried to raise first one foot and then the other--it was no use. The snow clung to his rackets in huge b.a.l.l.s and after repeated efforts he loosened the thongs and stepped on the melting snow, into which he promptly sank to his middle. He freed his rackets, tossed them toward the cabin, and wallowed to the door.
"Back a"ready?" grinned Waseche. "How"s the huntin"?" Connie laughed.
"You wait--I haven"t started yet!"
"Betteh keep inside, son. Yo" cain"t do no good out theah. They cain"t no game move in a thaw like this."
"Rabbits and ground squirrels and ptarmigan can," answered the boy.
"Yeh--but yo" cain"t!"
"I"m not going far. I"m wet now, and I"m not going to give up without trying." Three hours later he stumbled again through the door, bearing proudly a bedraggled ptarmigan and a lean ground squirrel, each neatly beheaded by a bullet from his high-power rifle. As he dried his clothing beside the rusty stove, the boy dressed his game, carefully dividing the offal between old Boris, Mutt, and Slasher, and the dogs greedily devoured it to the last hair and feather.
"Every little bit helps," he smiled. "But it sure is a little bit of meat for such a lot of work. I bet I didn"t get a quarter of a mile away."
For three days the wind held, the sun shone, and the snow melted.
Streams forced their way to the river and the surface of the Kandik became a raging torrent--a river on top of a river! Each day Connie hunted faithfully, sometimes in vain, but generally his efforts were rewarded by a ptarmigan, or a brace of lank snowshoe rabbits or ground squirrels, lured from their holes by the feel of the false spring.
On the fourth night it turned cold, and in the morning the snow was crusted over sufficiently to support a man"s weight on the rackets. The countless tiny rills that supplied the river were dried and the flood subsided and narrowed to the middle of the stream, while upon the edges the slush and anchor-ice froze rough and uneven.
Waseche Bill"s injured leg was much swollen and caused him great pain, but he bore it unflinchingly and laughed and joked gaily. But Connie was not deceived, for from the little fan of wrinkles at the corners of the man"s eyes, and the hard, drawn look about his mouth, the boy knew that his big partner suffered intensely even while his lips smiled and his words fell lightly in droll banter.
Thanks to the untiring efforts of the boy, their supply of provisions remained nearly intact, his rifle supplying the meat for their frugal meals. For two days past, O"Brien had brooded in silence, sitting for hours at a time with his back against the log wall and his gaze fixed, now upon the wounded man, and again upon the boy, or the great s.h.a.ggy _malamutes_ that lay sprawled upon the floor. He did his full share of the work: chopped the firewood, washed the dishes, and did whatever else was necessary about the camp while Connie hunted. But when he had finished he lapsed into a gloomy reverie, during which he would speak no word.
With the return of cold weather, the dogs had been expelled from the cabin and had taken up their quarters close beside the wall at the back.
"Me"be tomorrow we c"n hit the trail," said Waseche, as he noticed that the sun of the fourth day failed to soften the stiffening crust.
"We ought to make good time, now!" exclaimed the boy. But Waseche shook his head.
"No, son, we won"t make no good time the way things is. The trail is rough an" the sha"p ice"ll cut the dawg"s feet so they"ll hate to pull.
Likewise, yo"n an" O"Brien"s--them _mukluks_ won"t last a day, an" the sleds"ll be hahd to manage, sluein" sideways an" runnin" onto the dawgs.
I"ve ice-trailed befo" now, an" it"s wo"se even than soft snow. If yo"
c"n travel light so yo" c"n ride an" save yo" feet an" keep the dawgs movin" fast, it ain"t so bad--but mushin" slow, like we got to, an"
sho"t of grub besides--" The man shook his head dubiously and relapsed into silence, while, with his back against the wall, O"Brien listened and hugged closer his cans of gold.
CHAPTER XX
THE DESERTER
Connie Morgan opened his eyes and blinked sleepily. Then, instantly he became wide awake, with a strange, indescribable feeling that all was not well. Waseche Bill stirred uneasily in his sleep and through the cracks about the edges of the blanket-hung window and beneath the door a dull grey light showed. The boy frowned as he tossed back his robes and drew on his _mukluks_. This was the day they were to hit the trail and O"Brien should have had the fire going and called him early. Suddenly the boy paused and stared hard at the cold stove, and then at the floor beside the stove--at the spot where O"Brien"s blankets and robes should have shown an untidy heap in the dull light of morning. Lightning-like, his glance flew to the place at the base of the wall where the Irishman kept his gold--but the blankets and robes were gone, and the gold was gone, and O"Brien--? Swiftly the boy flew to the door--the big sled was missing, the harness, and McDougall"s dogs were gone, and O"Brien was nowhere to be seen!
For a long, long time the boy stood staring out over the dim trail of the river and then with clenched fists he stepped again into the room. A hurried inspection of the pack showed that the man had taken most of the remaining fish and considerable of the food, also Waseche Bill"s rifle was missing from its place in the far corner. With tight-pressed lips, Connie laid the fire in the little stove and watched dumbly as the tiny yellow sparks shot upward past the holes in the rusty pipe. Vainly the mind of the boy strove to grasp the situation, but his lips formed only the words which he repeated over and over again, as if seeking their import:
"He"s gone--he"s gone--O"Brien"s gone." He could not understand it.
Among the dwellers in the great white land the boy had known only men whose creed was to stick together until the end. From the hour he first set foot upon the dock at Anvik, to this very moment, with the single exception of the little rat-faced man at Ten Bow, the boy had learned to love the big men of the North--men whose vices were rugged vices--flaunting and unashamed and brutish, perhaps--but men, any one of whom would face privation, want, and toil--death itself--with a laugh in his teeth for the privilege of helping a friend--and who would fight to divide his last ounce of bacon with his enemy. For not by rule of life--but life itself men live upon the edges of the world, where little likes and hates are forgotten, and all stand shoulder to shoulder against their common enemy--the North! These were the men the boy had known. And now, for the first time, he was confronted by another kind of man--a man so yellow that, rather than face the perils and hardships of the trail, he had deserted those who had rescued him from a band of savages--and not only deserted, but had taken with him the only means by which the others could hope to reach civilization, and had left a wounded man and a little boy to die in the wilderness--bushed!
The dull soul-hurt of the boy flashed into swift anger and, flinging open the door, he shook a small fist toward the south.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "My dad followed British Kronk eight hundred miles through the snow before he caught him--and then--you just wait."]
"You cur!" he shouted. "You dirty cur! You _piker_! You think you"ve fixed us--but you wait! They say my dad followed British Kronk eight hundred miles through the snow before he caught him--and then--_you just wait!_ You tried to starve Waseche!"
"Heah! Heah! What"s all this?" asked the man, who had raised himself to his elbow upon the bunk. The boy faced him:
"He"s beat it!" he choked. "He swiped Mac"s dogs and breezed!" for a moment the man stared uncomprehendingly:
"Yo" mean O"Brien--he"s _gone_?"
"Yes, he"s gone! And so are the dogs, and the sled, and your rifle, and his robes, and his gold!"
"How about the grub?" asked Waseche. "Did he take that, too?"
"Only about a third of it--he"s travelling light." For a fleeting instant the boy caught the gleam of Waseche"s eyes, and then the gleam was gone and the man"s lips smiled.
"Sho", now," he drawled. "Sho", now." The drawl was studied, and the voice was low and very steady--too low and steady, thought the boy--and shivered.
"Neveh yo" mind, son. We-all ah all right. Jest yo" keep on a huntin"
an" a fetchin" in rabbits an" ptarmigan, an" such like, an" now the snow"s hahdened, me"be yo"ll get a crack at a moose oah a caribou. The heahd ort to pa.s.s somewhehs neah heah soon. We"ll jest lay up heah an"
wait fo" the break-up, an" then we"ll build us a raft an" go akitin"
down to the Yukon--an" then--" The voice suddenly hardened, and again the gleam was in the grey eyes, but the man ceased speaking abruptly.
"And then--what?" asked Connie, as he studied his partner"s face. The man laughed.
"Why, then--then we-all c"n go back to Ten Bow--to _home_! But, come now, le"s eat breakfast. We-all got to go light on the grub. Come on out of that, yo" li"l ol" _tillic.u.m_, standin" theah in the do" shakin" yo"
fist! Puts me in mind of a show I seen onct down to Skagway, in the opery house: Julia See"s Ah, I rec"lect was the name of it, an" they was a lot of fist shakin" an" fancy speeches by the men, which they was Greasers oah Dagoes that woah sheets wropped around "em, "stead of pants an" shirts. They was one fellow, See"s Ah, his name was--it was him the show was about. Neah as we-all c"d figgeh, he was a mighty good soht of a pahty, a king oah pres"dent, oah somethin", an" he had a friend, name of Brutish, that he"d done a heap fo", an" helped along, an" thought a heap of; an" anotheh friend name of Mahk Antony. Well, seems like this heah Brutish got soah at See"s Ah, I didn"t rightly get what fo"--but it don"t make no dif"ence--anyhow, he got a fellow name of Cashus, an" a couple mo" scoundrels an" they snuck up on See"s Ah when he worn"t lookin" an" stabbed him in the back. It sho" made us mad, an" we-all yelled at See"s Ah to look out, "cause we seen "em fingehin" theah knives in undeh theah sheets--but he didn"t get what we was drivin" at, an" when he did look it was too late. We waited a spell while the show went on, to see what Mahk Antony, See"s Ah"s otheh friend, w"d do to Brutish an" his gang--but he jest hung around makin" fancy speeches an"
such-like until we-all got plumb disgusted." Waseche Bill paused until Connie, who had been listening eagerly, grew impatient.
"Well, what _did_ he do?"
"Nawthin"," replied the man. "We done it fo" him. Cou"se, it was only a show, an" they didn"t really kill See"s Ah, but we-all didn"t like the idee, an" so when we seen Mahk didn"t aim to do nawthin" but orate, we-all let a yell out of us an" run up the aisle an" clim" onto the stage an" grabbed Brutish an" Cashus an" Mahk Antony, too, an" run "em down an" chucked "em into the Lynn Ca.n.a.l. It was winteh, an" the wateh was cold, an" we soused "em good an" propeh, an" when they got out they snuck onto theah boat an" we-all went back to the opery house an" got See"s Ah, an" tuck him oveh to the _ho_tel an" give him a rousin" big suppeh an" told him how we was all fo" him an" he c"d count on a squeah deal in Skagway every time. An" Grub Stake John Billin"s give him a six-shooteh an" showed him how he c"d hide it in undeh his sheet an" lay fo" "em next time they snuck up on him that-a-way. See"s Ah thanked us all an" we walked down to the boat with him in case Brutish an" his gang aimed to waylay him. An" then he made us a fine speech an" went on up the gangway laughin" an" chucklin" fit to kill at the way he"d suhprise them theah a.s.sinatehs next time they ondehtook to stick him in the back." Waseche Bill finished, and after a long pause Connie asked:
"And O"Brien reminds you of Brutish?"
"Yes, son. An" I was jest a wondehin" what the boys"ll do to him down in Eagle when they see Mac"s dawgs, an" ask him how come he to have "em, an" wheah yo" an" me is at. Yo" see, son, Big Jim Sontag an" Joe an"
Fiddle Face, an" a lot mo" of the boys was down to Skagway that night."
In the little cabin on the Kandik the days dragged slowly by. Waseche"s leg mended slowly, and despite the boy"s most careful attention, remained swollen and discoloured. Connie hunted during every minute of daylight that could be spared from his camp duties, but game was scarce, and although the boy tramped miles and miles each day, his bag was pitifully small. A s...o...b..rd or a ptarmigan now and then fell to his rifle and he found that it required the utmost care to keep from blowing his game to atoms with the high-power rifle. How he longed for a shotgun or a twenty-two calibre rifle as he dragged himself wearily over the hard crust of the snow. The cold weather had driven the ground squirrels into their holes and even the rabbits stuck close to cover. The boy set snares made from an old piece of fishline, but the night-prowling wolverines robbed them, as the line was too rotten for jerk snares.
The partners were reduced to one meal a day, now, and that a very scanty one. Day after day the boy circled into the woods, and day by day the circle shortened. He was growing weak, and was forced often to rest, and the buckle tongue of his belt rested in a knife slit far beyond the last hole.
Tears stood in Waseche Bill"s eyes as each day he noted that the little face was thinner and whiter than upon the preceding day, and that the little shoulders drooped lower as the boy returned from his hunt and sat wearily down upon the floor to pluck the feathers from a small s...o...b..rd.